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BEARSUIT TURTLE MAKES A FRIEND

Name: BEARSUIT TURTLE MAKES A FRIEND
Author: Bob Shea
ISBN: 9781419771552

by Bob Shea ; illustrated by Bob Shea ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 25, 2025

An amiable romp, funny to look at and fun to read.

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Two turtles form a unique bond over a shared special interest.

As the title humorously suggests, this picture book features a turtle in a bear costume. The suit is yellow and rotund, not unlike the form of a certain fabled bear with a particular taste for honey. The turtle cuts a comical figure—a little green ovoid face inhabiting the suit’s mouth, right about where a tongue should be. The suit’s hollow black interior frames a dramatic range of facial emotions. Bearsuit Turtle soon encounters a regular turtle who’s unconvinced that our hero is in fact a bear. So Bearsuit Turtle attempts to prove it as the other turtle lists skills that all bears have: climbing trees (the protagonist clambers up before quickly crashing to the ground), hibernating (a feat our hero manages for approximately two seconds), and foraging for food (in this case, ice cream—every bear’s favorite!). The turtles’ back-and-forth approaches increasingly absurd heights until our hero finally drops the charade—and the bear outfit. Shea employs his signature style, with characters rendered from simple shapes and a few rough-hewn lines communicating facial expressions perfectly. The pals amble through a brightly colored woodland speckled with pointy trees, blobby clouds, and the occasional tweety bird. The text is ideal for reading aloud and laughing along with, while the visual gag builds into a sweet relationship.

An amiable romp, funny to look at and fun to read. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: March 25, 2025

ISBN: 9781419771552

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Abrams

Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2025

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

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PIZZA FOR BIRDS
by Bob Shea ; illustrated by Bob Shea

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by Jill Esbaum ; illustrated by Bob Shea

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OH, ARE YOU AWAKE?
by Bob Shea ; illustrated by Jarvis

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CARPENTER'S HELPER

by Sybil Rosen ; illustrated by Camille Garoche ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 16, 2021

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.

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A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.

Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: March 16, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random

Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...

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Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.

The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)